Spotify has already invested around $1 billion in podcasting between its acquisitions, exclusive deals, and other partnerships. Now, it wants people to do more than just listen — it wants them to watch, too. The company announced today it’s opening up access to a new tool for creators that will allow them to begin publishing their video podcasts to its service. The tool will be provided by the company’s podcast creation platform Anchor, and expands on the global launch of video podcasts last year which encompassed only a select group of creators.

At the time, Spotify said its debut lineup of video podcasts included Spotify Originals and Exclusives, as well as some third-party podcasts. But there wasn’t a way for any creator to publish video to the service. Instead, they would have to turn to other video platforms, like YouTube.

Now, that’s changing. With Anchor, creators will be able to upload their videos through their account, similar to how they create and publish audio episodes today. Once published, fans can listen to the podcasts across platforms, including through the Spotify mobile app, desktop app, web player, and on most smart TVs and game consoles. Creators will also be able to monetize their videos as they do their audio podcasts through the use of subscriptions.

While creators can set their pricing and determine what a subscription includes, Spotify suggests subscriptions could provide access to exclusive video content or even unlock the video portion of the creator’s podcasts. The video podcasts can also incorporate the creator’s existing advertising partnerships and soon, they’ll support the newer Automated Ads, too.

While Spotify is officially opening up access to Anchor creators, the feature is being rolled out gradually. That means interested creators will have to sign up for a waitlist for the time being.

In the meantime, Spotify’s video lineup will include video podcasts from its Originals and Exclusives, like The Ringer’s Higher Learning with Van Lethan and Rachel Lindsay and The Joe Rogan Experience; and it will include other video creators who will now publish on Spotify, including Philip DeFranco, Jasmine Chiswell, The WAN Show,
Juicy Scoop with Heather McDonald, and more to come.

Spotify has tried and failed to expand into video in years past. Its first efforts in original video half a decade ago largely flopped, and the company shelved its video plans for some time. But more recently, the company signaled its potential interest in returning to video when it acquired sports network The Ringer, which came with a YouTube-based video operation. It then went on to make more deals that could translate to video, like the one with TikTok star, turned Netflix actress, Addison Rae.

The expansion of video to more podcast creators directly follows news that YouTube is now also considering investing further in its own podcasting efforts. Bloomberg this month reported the company is hiring its first executive focused on podcasts. This may have encouraged Spotify to promote its own video podcasting efforts, even though the actual access to start uploading is still blocked by a waitlist.

Currently, to find video content on Spotify, you’ll need to navigate to the episode page from the show you want to watch, then hit play to start the episode. From the play bar at the bottom of the screen, you can tap to view the video in full-screen mode. You can then choose to either listen or watch the program, depending on what you’re doing.

There isn’t yet an easy way to see all the podcasts that are video-enabled, however. Spotify also declined to share how many podcasts would be available as videos at launch, but said it expected to have rolled out access to “thousands” by year-end.

When Microsoft announced Windows 11, it didn’t mention anything about how it wanted to annoy users with a less functional taskbar, but it did talk quite a bit about how its new operating system would feature support for Android apps. It quickly became clear, though, that the first version, which went out only a few weeks ago, wouldn’t actually support Android apps. Now, however, Microsoft — in partnership with Amazon and its app store — is bringing a small subset of about 50 Android apps to the Windows 11 Insider Program.

If you’re on the beta build (not the dev build, because that’s on a different development cycle), you can now try apps like Amazon’s own Kindle app, The Washington Post app, Clash of Kings, Coin Master and Lego Duplo World.

All of this should work on AMD and Intel devices, with the apps running on what Microsoft calls the ‘Windows Subsystem for Android,’ which itself is powered by Intel’s Intel Bridge Technology. It’s worth noting that Microsoft is using the Linux Kernel and Android OS based on the open-source version of Android 11. With that, it gets virtually all of Android’s capabilities, but not some of the apps and additional functionality that Google brings to its Android build. Since that’s pretty much also what Amazon does, it’s maybe no surprise that apps from the Amazon Appstore should work well on the Windows subsystem, too.

Your PC must have virtualization enabled and fulfill Microsoft’s overall requirements for running Windows 11, of course. You’ll also need an Amazon account to access the store.

Image Credits: Microsoft

Is any of this a game-changer? I don’t know. I have no issues reading the Washington Post on the web — and I think many parents would prefer it if their kids played Lego Duplo World on a cheap tablet anyway. If you play Clash of Kings or Coin Master, there are other questions you have to ask yourself first anyway.

Now if Microsoft would allow me to move my taskbar up to the top of the screen again, where it belongs, that would be nice, though.

Pinterest has been trying to reposition its business as a home to creators, not just a shopping inspiration site. Today, the company revealed its latest efforts on this front, which include more Snapchat and TikTok-inspired features, including a vertical video feed and plans to invest $20 million in “Creator Rewards.” It’s also announcing a series of expanded creator tools, like the ability to respond to videos with “Takes,” support for Amazon Affiliates, and more, as well as the launch of original content.

The company earlier this year introduced Idea Pins, a video-first feature aimed at creators which is something like a mix of both TikTok and Stories. These Pins allow Pinterest users to record and edit creative videos using tools similar to those you would find on other short-form video platforms — like background music, transitions, and interactive elements. The Idea Pins can be up to 60 seconds in length, but unlike traditional short-form video, video can be just one part of what the Pin offers — it can also include up to 20 pages of content per Pin which you tap through like in Stories. This could allow a creator to explain the various steps involved in recreating their recipe or DIY project, for example.

Now, Pinterest is giving its home feed a redesign to better highlight these Pins in a more TikTok-like format. Users can choose to either “browse” or “watch” the Pins when looking for inspiration by selecting the associated tab on the home screen. The new Watch tab will launch users into a full-screen feed of Idea Pins which they scroll through vertically and can engage with, by leaving likes and comments, or by saving the Pin for later access. Though the experience of watching these video-enabled Pins feels a lot like browsing TikTok or Instagram Reels, you can still tap through to see more of the Pins’ pages, as you would with Stories, when available.

Image Credits: Pinterest (Takes)

In another nod to TikTok, which allows creators to interact with each others’ content through features like Duets and Stitches, Pinterest is also today introducing its own creator response feature called “Takes.” With Takes, creators will be able to respond to someone else’s Idea Pin with one of their own, where the response is linked back to the original. Think: a creator could try someone’s recipe but then offer their own variation; they could attempt to replicate the project another creator suggested, and show their results.

To kick-off “Takes,” Pinterest is pulling in celebs to participate, including Jennifer Lopez, Megan Thee Stallion, and Storm Reid. (The company has before used celebs to promote its other creator-focused efforts, including Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness, during a virtual creator event this year.)

Image Credits: Pinterest

In addition, creators can add a new “Try On” sticker to their Idea Pins which allows viewers to virtually try on lip products using augmented reality. This is a fairly common use of AR these days, as even Google, YouTube, Snap, and other beauty apps and retailers have adopted the tech. Pinterest, which has offered lipstick try-on since last year, expanded to include eyeshadow try-on in early 2021.  The new sticker will support over 10,000 try-on enabled products, Pinterest says.

And the company is launching its own original content series, Creator Originals, featuring over 100 creators across 10 countries which runs now through Jan. 2022. The creators will teach Pinterest users new skills in areas like beauty, home décor, wellness, fashion, cooking and more. Participants include Priscilla Ono, Kelly Wearstler, Ally Love, Zerina Akers, Kahh Spence, Joshua Weissman, Kia Cooks, Mat Sanders, and others.

Beyond the new product announcements, the bigger news is that Pinterest will now try to seed its network with more creator content by paying creators directly. The company says it’s launching a $20 million Creator Rewards fund in the U.S. — its first-ever in-product creator monetization program — initiate that will pay creators for participating in its challenges issued by Pinterest. This is an expansion on Pinterest’s April announcement of its $500,000 Creator Fund, which offered U.S. creators compensation with funds for content creation and advertising credits.

Image Credits: Pinterest (creator rewards)

Access to Creator Rewards is available through the Creator Hub on Pinterest, where creators can manage their Pinterest presence. The company says it will also offer “micro-grants” to fund various projects; think: a community garden, a wellness program, or a new beauty look, the company suggests.

Creators will have other ways to make money, too. U.S. creators will also now be able to tag their Pins using the existing product tagging tool with links from their Amazon Associates program. (The program already offered support for affiliate programs like Rakuten and ShopStyle as of this summer.)

And creators can now enable shopping recommendations powered by Pinterest’s visual search (its “shop similar” feature), which is being enabled for video for the first time — another attempt at catching up with TikTok and its e-commerce feature set. 

All new features will roll out starting today on iOS, Android and the web.

Spotify this morning announced a new partnership with e-commerce platform provider Shopify that will allow artists on its service to connect their Spotify profiles with their Shopify stores, allowing them to market their merchandise directly to fans through the Spotify app. After connecting their Spotify for Artists accounts with their Shopify online store, artists will be able to sync their product catalog to Spotify to showcase whichever products they choose on their profile in the streaming music app.

From there, fans will be able to browse the products and make purchases. In addition to enabling easier access to artists’ existing Shopify stores, the integration could offer an additional revenue stream for artists that had not yet established a merchandise website, and could give those who already have a website elsewhere a reason to switch to Shopify’s platform.

Shopify says it already powers the websites for thousands of artists who are expanding their businesses beyond music alone to build “fully realized” brands.

“Artists today are entrepreneurial. They’re building multifaceted brands and businesses, and now we’re making it easier for them to meet fans where they are,” said Amir Kabbara, Spotify’s Director of Product, in a statement. “By bringing entrepreneurship to Spotify, we’re empowering artists to think beyond the traditional merch table with new ways to monetize, and to experiment with their brands through commerce.”

Image Credits: Spotify

Shopify also says its larger app ecosystem could help artists enable new services, as well, like print-on-demand or product discovery tools. And Shopify’s infrastructure is able to manage high volumes of traffic for artists with large followings who may send surges at times — like when they drop new products, for example, Shopify added.

While the Shopify partnership is significant, it’s not the first time Spotify has teamed up with another company to give artists the ability to market their merchandise through its app. The comapny, for many years, has offered artist profile integrations with other merchandise service providers. Currently, this includes a deal with Merchbar, but in previous years, Bandpage and Topspin, have been partnered.

With Merchbar, artists can select 3 products to showcase on their profile. Now artists using Shopify can do the same.

To get started, artists will first log in to their Spotify for Artists dashboard on desktop, then go to the “Profile” tab, and click “Merch.” From there, they will pick the three items from their Shopify store to feature on their profile. At present, artists are only able to connect one Shopify store per artist.

To encourage sign-ups, Shopify is offering a 90-day free trial to all Spotify artists signing up for the first time.

However, the feature is currently in “beta,” Spotify says. While all artists globally can link their Shopify stores, the merch will only appear to listeners in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. for the time being.

Image Credits: Spotify

Both Shopify and Spotify have similar interests in enabling the new creator economy, though with different focus areas. Shopify sees its e-commerce platform as a complement to creator businesses of all kinds, while Spotify’s interest is more on artists (and now, podcast creators, too). In the past, Spotify has rolled out a number of other tools in the creator space, including those for ticketing, tipping, and Fans First emails, to help artists grow their larger businesses.

Earlier this year, both companies’ CEOs — Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, and Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke — participated in a Clubhouse session where they talked about the many ways creators today were diversifying their monetization strategies.

At the time, Ek hinted towards the possibilities of working more closely with Shopify, when he noted how many artists were already using its platform.

“Almost every successful creator now is omni- talented and omnichannel,” he said at the time. “That means that they are on YouTube putting up videos. They are on Instagram. They are perhaps putting together brands and putting it on Shopify, but they’re also putting out music and merchandise on Shopify and music on Spotify, of course, and touring. And so they’re really just doing a multitude of different things and connecting with their fan bases across many different platforms,” Ek had said.

The former Head of the Facebook app, who reported directly to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Fidji Simo, defended the social network at the start of an interview at the WSJ Tech Live event this afternoon. The exec was there to discuss her new role as Instacart CEO and her vision for the future of food delivery, but was asked to comment on the recent Facebook whistleblower’s testimony and the attention it has since raised.

Simo said she understood the scrutiny given Facebook’s impact on people’s lives. But she’s also worried that Facebook will never be able to do enough to appease its critics at this point, despite the complexity of the issues Facebook is grappling with as one of the world’s largest social networks.

“They are spending billions of dollars in keeping people safe. They are doing the most in-depth research of any company I know to understand their impact,” she argued, still very much on Facebook’s side, despite her recent departure. “And I think my worry is that people want ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to this question, but really these questions require a lot of nuance,” she added.

While the whistleblower, Frances Haugen, suggested that Facebook’s decision to prioritize user engagement through its algorithms was ultimately putting profits over people, Simo cautioned the choices weren’t quite as binary as have been described to date. She explained that making changes based on the research Facebook had invested in wasn’t just a matter of turning a dial and “all of a sudden, magically problems disappear — because Facebook is fundamentally a reflection of humanity,” she said.

Image Credits: Instacart

Instead, Simo said that the real issues at Facebook were around how every change Facebook makes can have significant societal applications at this point. It has to work to determine how it can improve upon the potentially problematic areas of its business without incidentally affecting other things along the way.

“When we discuss trade-offs, it’s usually trade-offs between two types of societal impacts,” she noted.

As an example, Simo used what would seem like a fairly straightforward adjustment to make: determine which posts make Facebook users angry then show people less of those.

As Haugen had testified, Facebook’s algorithms have been designed to reward engagement. That means posts with “likes” and other interactions spread more widely and are distributed higher up in people’s News Feeds. But she also said engagement doesn’t just come from likes and positive reactions. Engagement-based algorithms will ultimately prioritize clickbait and posts that make people angry. This, in turn, can help to boost the spread of posts eliciting stronger reactions, like misinformation or even toxic and violent content.

Simo, however, said it’s not as simple as it sounds to just dial down the anger across Facebook, as doing so would lead to another type of societal impact.

“You start digging in and you realize that the biggest societal movements were created out of anger,” she said. That led the company to question how it could make a change that could impact people’s activism.

(This isn’t quite how that situation unfolded, according to a report by The WSJ. Instead, when the algorithm was tweaked to prioritize personal posts over professionally produced content, publishers and political parties adjusted their posts towards outrage and sensationalism. And Zuckerberg resisted some of the proposed fixes to this problem, the report said.)

“That’s just a random example,” Simo said of the “anger” problem. “But literally, on every issue, there is always a trade-off that is another type of societal impact. And I can tell you for having been in these rooms for many, many years. It’s really never about like, oh, are we doing the right thing for society, versus the right thing for Facebook and for profits’…the debate was really between some kinds of societal impact and another kind — which is a very hard debate to have as a private company.”

This, she added, was why Facebook wanted regulations.

“It’s not surprising that Facebook has been calling for regulation in this space for a very long time because they never want to be in a position of being the ones deciding which implications, which ramifications, which trade-offs they need to make between one type of societal impact and another type of societal impact. The governments are better positioned to do that,” she said.

Given the increasing amount of evidence coming out that Facebook itself understood, through its own internal research, that there were areas of its business that negatively impact society, Simo didn’t chalk up her departure from the social network to anything that was going on with Facebook itself.

Instead, she said she just wasn’t learning as much after ten years with the company, and Instacart presented her with a great opportunity where she could learn “a different set of things,” she said.

Alongside today’s release of the new Pixel 6 smartphones, Google has again upgraded one of the device’s most basic — but often overlooked — functions: the ability to make phone calls. In previous years, Google Assistant learned to screen your calls and make your reservations by phone via a technology called Duplex. Last year, it learned how to wait on hold for you, too. Today, Google is expanding some of these existing features and adding new ones — including a tool that shows you the best time to call a business and a new Duplex-powered feature for navigating businesses’ phone trees.

With the Phone app on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, a new feature called “Wait Times” will display the projected time it will take to get through to a person when dialing a toll-free number. You’ll be able to see this information before you place the call now only for the present time, but also for the rest of the week. This information may allow you to make a better decision about when to place the call.

Image Credits: Google

Of course, in order to show this information, Google is leveraging its ability to collect data from its users. Similar to how Google Maps will show you when a business is the most crowded using anonymized data from Maps users, “Wait Times” are inferred from call length data when calls are placed through its phone app. This data is not linked to individual users, Google says.

Another new addition is the “Direct My Call” feature, which will help you get through complicated phone trees when you dial a business. Instead of listening and trying to remember the many options presented (e.g. “Press 1 for hours and locations”), Google Assistant will translate the automated messages for you. This allows you to read back through the options to see which number you’ll want to tap to get the information you need — or to reach a live agent, as is often the case.

In the past, users frustrated with difficult customer service calls may have turned third-party apps and websites like GetHuman, to figure out how to reach a real person more quickly. But these websites aren’t always up-to-date. “Direct My Call” offers an alternative. You could multi-task or even set your phone down while the various options are read aloud — something that’s tedious to have to listen to in real-time. When you return to the phone, you’ll be able to read the options available and choose the one you need. (The feature could also help those who are hard-of-hearing, but who don’t yet require a TTY.)

Like the earlier reservation-setting feature, “Direct My Call” is also powered by Google Duplex technology.

Duplex is sometimes confused with the reservation scheduling feature itself, which was one of the first big use cases for the technology when it debuted. But Duplex itself doesn’t just enable natural-sounding conversations for making your appointments. It can be used for understanding, too. In the case of “Direct My Call,” for example, Duplex uses advanced speech recognition and language understanding models to help determine when the business wants you to do something — like press a number, say a word (like “representative”), or enter your account number, among other things.

In addition to “Direct My Call” and “Wait Times,” which are launching with the Pixel devices, for the time being, Google is also expanding access to “Hold for Me.”

Since launching last year in the U.S., the feature has saved users over 1.5 million minutes per month. In the coming months, it will begin to roll out to Pixel users in Australia, Canada, and Japan, as well, says Google.

Image Credits: Google

Meanwhile, Google’s existing call screening functions are also getting an upgrade.

Before, Google’s own caller ID coverage would help users to identify spam and other calls from unknown numbers. Now, it will allow users to contribute data about their incoming business calls, too. That means you’ll be able to share what type of business had called you (e.g. bill collectors, finance, utilities, etc.) so that others who receive the same call in the future will know what to expect. This data is shared without any personal identifiers, notes Google. The company believes this will help to double the number of businesses with caller ID information going forward.

In addition, call screening will expand to more markets. In the U.S., Canada, and Japan, it’s now screening 37 million calls per month. Starting today, it will roll out to Pixel users in the U.K., France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Italy, and Spain, too.

Typically, Google releases new features to its latest Pixel phones first, before rolling them out over time to more Pixel devices or Android more broadly. That means “Wait Times” and “Direct My Call” will likely be exclusive to Pixel 6 phones for some time, initially.

In a wide-ranging interview at the WSJ Tech Live conference that touched on topics like the future of remote work, A.I. innovation, employee activism, and even misinformation on YouTube, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai also shared his thoughts on the state of tech innovation in the U.S. and the need for new regulations. Specifically, Pichai argued for the creation of a federal privacy standard in the U.S., similar to the GDPR in Europe. He also suggested it was important for the U.S. to stay ahead in areas like A.I., quantum computing, and cybersecurity, particularly as China’s tech ecosystem further separates itself from Western markets.

In recent months, China has been undergoing a tech crackdown which has included a number of new regulations designed to combat tech monopolies, limit customer data collection, and create new rules around data security, among other things. Although many major U.S. tech companies, Google included, don’t provide their core services in China, some who did are now exiting — like Microsoft, which just this month announced its plan to pull LinkedIn from the Chinese market.

Pichai said this sort of decoupling of Western tech from China may become more common.

He also said it would be important to stay ahead in areas where the U.S. and China compete, like A.I., quantum computing, and cybersecurity, noting that Google’s investments in these areas comes at a time when governments were slightly pulling back on “basic R&D funding.”

“The government has limited resources and it needs to focus,” noted Pichai, “but all of us are benefiting from foundational investments from 20 to 30 years ago — which is what a lot of the modern tech innovation is based on, and we take it for granted a bit,” he said. “So when I look at beat semiconductor supply chain [and] quantum…the government can play a key role, both in terms of policies and allowing us to bring in the best talent from anywhere in the world, or participating with universities and creating some of the longer-term research areas,” Pichai added. These are areas that private companies may not focus on from day one, but play out of 10 to 20 years, he said.

In the wake of increased cyberattacks across borders, Pichai said that the time had come for a sort of “Geneva Convention equivalent” for the cyber world, adding that governments should put security and regulation higher on their agendas.

He more directly argued in favor of new federal privacy regulations in the U.S. — something Google has pushed for many times in the past — suggesting that something like the GDPR in Europe is warranted.

“I think the GDPR has been a great foundation,” said Pichai. “I would really like to see a federal privacy standard in the U.S. and worried about a patchwork of regulations in states. That adds a lot of complexity,” he continued, noting that “larger companies can cope with more regulations and entrench themselves, whereas for a smaller company to start,  it can be a real tax.”

That’s a point that’s been consistently brought up when Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls for regulation, too. A more regulated U.S. tech industry could work in favor of larger companies like Facebook and Google which have the resources to address the regulatory hurdles. But a single federal standard could also give big tech only one law to battle against, instead of many scattered across the U.S. states.

Pichai additionally tied consumer privacy to security, even noting that “one of the biggest risks to privacy is the data getting compromised” — an interesting statement coming only days after Amazon, a top Google rival, saw its game streaming site Twitch hacked.

As for where to draw the line in regulating tech, Pichai said the law shouldn’t encroach on the open internet.

“I think the internet works well because it’s interoperable, it’s open, it works across borders, promotes trade across borders…and so, as we evolve and regulate the internet, I think it’s important to preserve those attributes,” he noted.

The exec also responded to many other questions about ongoing issues Alphabet and Google are facing, like the pandemic impacts to corporate culture, employee activism, misinformation on YouTube, and more.

On the latter, Pichai expressed a commitment to freedom of experience but noted at the end of the day, the company was trying to balance content creators, users, and advertisers. He said many brand advertisers would not want their ads to appear next to some types of content. Essentially, he suggested that the nature of YouTube’s ads-based economy could help to solve the misinformation problem.

“You can look at it from a free-market basis and say, [advertisers] don’t want their ads next to content because they think it’s brand-negative. So, in some ways, the incentives of the ecosystem actually help get to the right decision over time.”

He sidestepped the interviewer’s question as to whether YouTube was basically acting as a publisher as it made its content decisions, however.

Pichai also talked about Alphabet’s corporate culture in the pandemic era and going back to the office, saying that a three-two model (meaning three days of in-person vs. two days remote) can offer better balance. The in-person days allow for collaboration and community, while the remote days help employees better manage the issues that traditionally came with in-person work, like longer commutes. However, in another part of the interview, he spoke of missing his own commute, now that he does it less, saying it was time where he had the space for “deeper thinking.”

As for employee activism — which is seeing more activity as of late as tech companies grapple with large and diverse staffs who often share contradictory opinions on the decisions made at the executive level — Pichai says this is the “new normal” for business. But it’s also nothing new for Google, he pointed out. (Years ago, Google employees were protesting the company’s work on a censored search engine for the Chinese market, for instance.)

“If anything, we’ve been used to it for a while,” said Pichai, noting that the best the company could do is to try to explain its decisions.

“I view it as a strength of the company, at a high level, having employees be so engaged they deeply care about what the company does,” he said.

Instagram today announced the launch of a couple of new tools aimed at addressing the needs of Live creators. Now, creators will be able to build up buzz for their upcoming Live by scheduling it up to 90 days in advance, then share the news across Instagram to alert their fans. It’s also preparing to roll out a new feature called “Practice Mode,” which allows creators to join their guests ahead of the scheduled event to test their connection, lighting and manage any other pre-show prep that may be needed.

The latter is a feature creators have been asking to have for some time, says Instagram.

Meanwhile, the ability to schedule Instagram Live videos puts Instagram on a more even footing with other live platforms, like YouTube and TikTok, as well as Instagram parent, Facebook.

YouTube has for a long time offered tools that allow creators to schedule live streams in advance in order to begin promotional efforts. And in 2018, it expanded its capabilities to allow creators to schedule the release of their pre-recorded videos through a Premieres feature that offers similar functionality — like access to Super Chat, for example. Last year, it added a pre-show option, as well.

Facebook Live has also offered tools to creators for many years, including those for scheduling, marketing, and pre-broadcast lobbies.

Meanwhile, TikTok just this year rolled out a set of creator tools which included the ability to schedule TikTok LIVE videos, as it continues to more fully embrace the live format.

Instagram says its new Live Scheduling feature will be available to creators globally. And after scheduling their upcoming Live video, they’ll then be able to share that scheduled content directly to their followers through both their Stories and Feed posts.

Followers can then use tools to set a reminder so they won’t miss the Live videos from their favorite creators.

Image Credits: Instagram

The launch arrives as the market for live content is heating up. In addition to enabling real-time e-commerce — an area where Instagram is deeply invested — Instagram’s biggest rival, TikTok, has also been working to make its live content a larger part of the overall user experience. Not only do users randomly come across live videos as they scroll their TikTok feeds, it also recently introduced a new way to navigate through live videos by category using an “explore” button within the live section.

Instagram, on the other hand, has been revamping its video strategy in recent days. This month, it said it was giving up on the “IGTV” brand, and instead would merge that long-form video with Feed video. As part of this effort, it rebranded the IGTV app which will now be the home for all Instagram videos, including Lives, with the exception of Reels.

Reels, however, continues to have a central place in the main Instagram app, where it’s accessible from the center button, users’ profiles, Explore, and hashtag pages.

When the Trump administration announced it would ban TikTok in the U.S., a number of alternative short-form video apps began to flourish, as users hedged their bets on a potential TikTok exit. Among these was Byte, an app co-created by Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann, which topped 1.3 million downloads in its first week alone. But when Trump’s ban on TikTok failed, Byte sold to rival Clash — an admission of sorts that TikTok’s momentum couldn’t be beaten. Now, new owner Clash is kicking off round two. It’s relaunching its app with the “best of Byte” under the hood alongside a suite of creator tools for monetizing a fan base.

This time, the focus isn’t on beating TikTok, but working in parallel alongside it.

Clash was founded by Brendon McNerney, a former Vine star who at one point grew his own social following on the now-shuttered app to over 700,000 followers. As someone who worked directly in the creator space, McNerney believes he could offer a unique perspective on creator monetization — something even leading apps can still struggle with today.

The newly rebuilt Clash’s premise is that it can help creators identify, engage and monetize their strongest and most loyal fans.

To do so, Clash is introducing a set of tools for creators and their fans, including a virtual tipping mechanism called Drops (not to be confused with product drops, popular in e-commerce) and a custom messaging system called Fanmail, for starters.

Image Credits: Clash

The idea is that creators could grow their overall fanbase by using larger platforms like Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, where they can monetize the crowd through various methods, like advertising revenue share, brand sponsorships and other more direct methods, when available, like tips and subscriptions. Meanwhile, Clash could serve as the backchannel for the fans who are more invested in the creator’s journey — like those who are willing to help fund a creator’s work, similar to Patreon, or those who want a closer relationship with their favorite creators than they would otherwise be able to achieve elsewhere.

McNerney says large platforms, like TikTok, can limit creators’ monetization potential.

“TikTok is a virality machine. It just creates new creators every day — an issue because there’s only so many ad dollars…there’s only so many dollars in the Creator Fund,” he says.

The founder took inspiration from what was working well in other industries, like Twitch with live content, OnlyFans for adult content and Patreon for more project-based work, like podcasts.

Image Credits: Clash

“The thing that really stuck out was, in 2019, I started seeing creators post their Venmo links in their bio. It was kind of a head-scratch moment,” McNerney says. He began to think about how those link-in-bio systems could be turned into more of a product. “And so we really started from the question…if Patreon was built now, what would it look like? And then: how can we do what we know well — which is short-form video?” he continues. “We really wanted to build a short-form video platform, where the video was just the medium, but the whole point of the platform was to support your favorite creators and connect with your fans.”

The initial beta version of Clash launched last summer on the App Store. Soon, the team found creators wanted to use it as a more authentic place to engage with fans outside of larger platforms. Creators wanted to create content specifically designed for the top 10-15% of their fan base — people who were already supporting them in other ways, like buying their merchandise, for example.

This led to the launch of Clash’s first product, Fanmail, where fans could pay to unlock the ability to send personalized messages to top creators, who acknowledge them and respond directly.

It also introduced Drops, a digital good purchased from the App Store that fans can use as a token of appreciation or for access to send Fanmail.

Image Credits: Clash

Creators can redeem Drops at 2,500 (or $25), Clash says. This is a lower threshold than some creator platforms, like Twitch, where you need to have earned $100 to cash out. Clash says it will also seed its network by gifting hundreds of Drops to new users, free of charge. And, for the time being, Clash will not take a cut of these sales — meaning creators keep 100% of the revenue from the Drops they receive. (The company hasn’t yet decided what percentage it will take when the promotional period ends sometime next year.)

McNerney envisions how Clash can be used in the early stages of content creation and planning, which makes it more symbiotic with larger platforms, like TikTok, instead of a direct competitor. For example, one of Clash’s launch creators, Yasmine Sahid, who makes comedic videos on TikTok, is using Clash to fund her other passion: making music. She’s been building her first music video with the support of fans on Clash, who are funding it through their Drops. And as the video is produced, these fans get access to the behind-the-scenes content and other sneak peeks.

Plus, he argues, innovations in creator monetization may need to take place outside of larger platforms.

“The biggest issue, I think, is while [these large platforms] are experimenting with these tools, they’re not leaning into them. At the end of the day, their revenue is 98, 99% from advertising revenue,” he says. “The model that they see themselves leaning into is just strictly focusing on keeping eyeballs glued to the screen. Whereas, they’re improving their algorithms — they want people viewing — we actually want people engaging,” McNerney adds.

Image Credits: Clash

At launch, Clash’s app has been rebuilt to handle future scale and to support monetization tools. Meanwhile, Clash is including what the team loved about Byte, including the way Byte’s Camera worked, the in-app feed and the app’s Discovery page. There are other similarities between Byte’s design and the new app, as well.

And while Clash will gain access to Byte’s existing registered user base of 5 million when it relaunches in Byte’s place on the app stores, it plans to support a variety of creators — not just the young Gen Z’ers who used to try to “bully the millennials” off the original Byte app.

In the near-term, Clash plans to add something called a “fan score” based on their engagement in the app, including entering chats and commenting on videos. It plans to release this feature soon after the public debut.

Of course, even as a platform for the most loyal fans, Clash will have its competition from startups and big tech alike. Twitter has built Super Follow to cater to creators while Instagram has been spotted working on its own fan subscription product in recent days.

Co-founded by P.J. Leimgruber, who previously founded influencer agency NeoReach, LA-based Clash is now a team of 17 full-time. Many early employees have backgrounds in social and creator platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Vine, Snap, Twitter, Google, Pinterest and Cameo. Vine’s/Twitter’s head of Creator Development, Karyn Spencer, is also Clash’s creator advisor. Byte and Vine co-founder Dom Hoffman remains an advisor.

Ahead of its relaunch, Clash raised $9.1 million in funding over three rounds. The latest was a seed round led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s new fund Seven Seven Six. Other investors in Clash include M13 Ventures, Plug and Play, ACME Capital, and angels Jesse Leimgruber (NeoReach co-founder) and NBA Players, Austin Rivers and Seth Curry.

Clash is relaunching today under Byte’s listing on the App Store and on Google Play.

When you’re exploring a city — whether one you’re visiting on your travels or your own — there are a number of tools that can help you find out where to go, what to see, and what to do, like Google Maps, Yelp, TripAdvisor and others. But a startup called Welcome thinks that today’s set of tools could be smarter and more personalized to the individuals who use them. Its new app instead uses “real-time” technologies to make recommendations that take into account a user’s preferences as well as other details about their current context — like the weather, season, traffic, and the popularity of the place at the current time of day — in order to provide a better-curated set of recommendations.

The end result is meant to be a city guide that’s more like “a concierge in your pocket,” says Welcome co-founder Matthew Rosenberg.

Image Credits: Welcome

Rosenberg says he was inspired to build Welcome after traveling, pre-pandemic, with his then-girlfriend, now-wife following the acquisition of his first company, a mobile video creation app called Cameo, by Vimeo. During this time, the couple explored parts of Europe, Latin America, and the U.S., which was an amazing experience he says, and one that ultimately brought them closer together, as it turned out.

“But something I found myself doing in in those moments — we’re in all these beautiful places…we’re in an incredible museum or at a wonderful lunch — and I found myself hunched over my phone, trying to figure out where to go next,” Rosenberg explains. He was sifting through Google Maps, recommendations from friends, and trying to read reviews to make a decision about what was next on their journey.

This led him to wonder: “why isn’t there a tool that like can be smart and go beyond just place [recommendations] — that can really look at what’s going on in my life and in the world around me, and make smarter recommendations?” he recalls.

Image Credits: Welcome

This led to the development of what’s now become Wonder, a city guide app that combines intelligence, recommendations, personalization, and even media, like photos and videos, to help users find things to do.

The startup is co-founded by fellow Vimeo employees Peter Gerard, Mark Armendariz, and Mark Essel, who together with Rosenberg launched an early version of Welcome back in 2019 as something of a market test. Their idea landed them some seed money from Accel, which gave them enough runway to build the version of the app they had in mind.

That version has now arrived on the App Store.

Upon first launch, you’ll give Welcome some input about your interests and you’ll have the option to pick from a series of publishers to follow — like Condé Nast, Lonely Planet, Eater, Culture Trip, Food & Wine, and others — whose content is used to help inform Welcome’s recommendations.

Image Credits: Welcome

You can then scroll through the app’s home feed to see relevant articles for the city you’re currently researching or browse the map, where suggestions are marked with icons related to the place — like a cheeseburger for a restaurant, martini glass for a bar, tree for an outdoor place (like a farmers market), and so on.

As you tap into each place, you’ll be presented with photos and videos, and links to get directions, the website, the phone number, as well as a button to order an Uber or Lyft, and more. You can also leave your own tips for fellow Welcome users, mark the list as a favorite, and add tags.

As you browse the map, buttons at the top let you filter to see only a subset of places, like food, drinks, activities, arts, and more.

The app itself is well-designed in terms of the look of its user interface, but it’s perhaps not as simple to use as an app that’s more heavily focused on collecting user-generated content — like business ratings and reviews.

It was not immediately obvious, for example, how you could contribute your own photos and videos to a place, as some listings offered a prominently placed “Add” button for uploading your media, while it seemed others did not. In reality, the “Add” button wasn’t missing — you just had to scroll over to the right to see it. But it wasn’t clear that the row was scrollable. It looked like the Add button simply wasn’t there. (See below examples.)

Image Credits: screenshots from Welcome

Still, Welcome’s underlying data and parsing engines are interesting. The team developed custom tools that pick up keywords in the articles from publishers and turn them into tags. Eventually, it wants to expand this technology to any site — like local blogs, for instance — which users could click and save, perhaps via a web browser extension. The team is even thinking about offering a way to ingest the travel lists and tips people collect in less obvious places — like spreadsheets, notes, and emails.

In time, Welcome would also like to better integrate suggestions and guides from travel content creators to enhance its recommendations further. This could also later aid its business model, where premium travel guides from specific creators or publishers could be made available for a fee. The company also plans to add more ways to transact in-app, like booking tickets or other activities where a revenue share would be involved.

Before its public debut, Welcome grew to over 50,000 beta users across more than 350 cities worldwide and now has over 6.5 million places its database. It’s offering over 300,000 curated recommendations globally, at launch.

The startup is backed by a $3.5 million seed round led by Accel, with Lakestar Ventures participating. The round closed in 2020 but hadn’t yet been announced. Including pre-seed funding, Welcome has raised $4.2 million to date.

Welcome’s app, for the time being, is available on iOS only as a free download.

Four search engine rivals to Google have called on European Union lawmakers to address the tech giant’s continued dominance of the market by setting rules for search engine preference menus, arguing that the tech giant’s ability to set damaging defaults is continuing to limit how easily consumers can switch to a non-Google alternatives.

In an open letter today, the non-tracking search engines DuckDuckGo and Qwant, along with tech-for-good focused Lilo and tree-planting not-for-profit Ecosia, urge the region’s lawmakers to go further to tackle platform giants’ market power.

“The DMA [Digital Markets Act] urgently needs to be adapted to prevent gatekeepers from suppressing search engine competition,” they write. “Specifically, the DMA should enshrine in law a requirement for a search engine preference menu that would effectively ban Google from acquiring default search access points of the operating systems and the browsers of gatekeepers. Moreover, the DMA should ensure that, in addition to selecting their preferred search default in initial onboarding, consumers are able to one-click switch at any time via prompts from competing search engine apps or websites. These actions would finally lead to significant implications for competition in the search engine market and ensure there is real consumer choice online.”

The Commission presented the Digital Markets Act at the end of last year — proposing a fixed set of ex ante rules for so-called Internet “gatekeepers” with the aim of ensuring that these intermediating Internet giants cannot abuse their power to crush competitors and squeeze consumers.

However the four Google search rivals say the proposed legislation doesn’t currently contain any measured that will help break the tech giant’s continued dominance of search in Europe (where it has around 93%) — hence their call for EU lawmakers to make amendments to add binding rules for search preference screens so that consumers always have an effortless ability to switch their default search engine choice, whether on mobile or desktop.

While the Commission was responsible for the original draft of the DMA, the EU’s other core institutions — the European Parliament and Member States, via the EU Council — have to agree on the details so negotiations over the exact shape of the regulation are continuing.

“We welcome the Commission’s goals with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) but the DMA fails to address the most acute barrier in search: Google’s hoarding of default positions,” the four search rivals also write. “Google would not have become the overall market gatekeeper they are today without years of locking up these defaults. If the DMA fails to address this fundamental issue, we believe the status quo will continue, leaving the root cause of this problem unchanged.”

Google has been contacted for comment on the claims.

Back in 2018, the EU’s competition commission fined Google $5BN over antitrust abuses in how it operates its Android smartphone platform.

Following that intervention the tech giant introduced a regional search preference screen that was shown on set-up of a new Android smartphone in Europe. However Google quickly implemented a sealed bids auction model that required rivals to pay it (and outbid each other) to appear in one of the available slots which competitors immediately decried it as unfair and non-transparent.

Some three years later, following another intervention by the Commission — and after absolutely no dent in Google’s search marketshare in Europe — the tech giant finally announced it would drop the auction model, replacing it with a choice screen that displays eligible search rivals without requiring a fee.

But, again, rivals quickly pointed out continuing limitations with Google’s ‘remedy’ — such as the fact it only applies to mobile devices, not to users of Google’s browser Chrome on desktop devices; and the fact that Android users are only shown the choice screen on set-up or at a factory reset, so most of the time they use a device they do not see it.

DuckDuckGo, for example, has been loudly pressing the case for a ‘truly fair’ search choice that only requires one click for consumers to switch — not the 15+ clicks it says it takes to switch default search engine on an Android device currently at any other point after initial set up (or a factory reset).

Using such dark patterns to lock in self-preferencing defaults is something that should be proscribed by EU law, the search rivals argue.

“Google-imposed limitations make it hard for consumers to adopt other search engines, despite the Commission’s antitrust decision,” they argue. “Like MEP Yon-Courtin proposed in her draft report for the Economic Affairs committee, we believe a properly-designed preference menu should be mandated more broadly.”

We’ve reached out to the Commission for comment on the call for dedicated search preference screen rules to be baked into the DMA and will update this report with any response.

Where’s the remedy?

The European Commission has — for years — shied away from imposing specific remedies on Google, despite a string of antitrust enforcements. Instead EU lawmakers have typically said it is up to Google to figure out exactly how to comply with its various orders to cease infringements in areas like product search, search ad brokering and Android.

The result of such a hands-off approach by the EU’s executive is that Google has been able to find ways to maintain its dominance of key strategic markets like search — in spite of a string of high profile antitrust enforcements in Europe.

It’s an uncomfortable record for the EU’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, who has carved out a reputation as the ‘iron lady’ willing to take on Big Tech — yet whose enforcements in the digital sphere haven’t actually moved the needle on platform giants’ market share. (Nor blocked Google from continued consolidation.)

However some EU Member States are starting to take a much more hands on approach to reigning in big tech’s market abuse which looks like it will have an impact.

France’s competition authority, for example, recently extracted a series of interoperability requirements from Google in a case related to self-preferencing of its adtech.

While Germany’s Federal Cartel Office started this year armed with beefed-up powers to impose ex ante remedies on digital giants that are deemed to have substantial market power. It’s now in the process of assessing whether Google — and a number of other tech giants — meet that bar. If it finds they do it looks eager to get to work setting pre-emptive rules for how they can operate in Germany.

Outside the EU, the UK is also reforming domestic competition rules to clip Big Tech’s wings. It’s in the process of shaping an ex ante regime for digital giants with what it describes as “strategic market status” — that, unlike the Commission’s approach with the DMA, won’t be one-sized fits all.

Instead the UK has said it wants to tailor rules to the specific business — which would give its regulators more leeway to, for example, impose a search preference menu remedy on a firm like Google if they decide such a step is necessary.

The Commission’s centralized single set of rules for Big Tech does, therefore, look like it could end up being a weak tool in the face of extremely well resourced ‘innovators’ who have years of experience building and iterating services that are designed to eliminate friction and topple barriers to greater scale.

The EU’s executive risks being caught flat-footed on the issue of tech antitrust at a time when lawmakers all around the world are fired up and active on the issue — from China to the US.

It’s therefore interesting to note how, in the wake of a very bad week for (another tech giant:) Facebook, including Congressional testimony by the latest tech whistleblower, Francis Haugen, EU commissioners were falling over themselves to tweet about their “urgency” to tackle Big Tech…

Antitrust chief Vestager also tweeted in the wake of the global Facebook outage — which was also an Instagram and a WhatsApp outage, since all three social services run on the same infrastructure, all being owned by Facebook — with the EU’s EVP saying the episode demonstrated the need for “alternatives and choices in the tech market”.

Given that headline anti-consolidation message, EU citizens might be forgiven for asking why Vestager’s department hasn’t blocked a single tech acquisition — including Google’s recent gobbling of health tech company Fitbit? How exactly does Vestager propose to support startups and alternatives in gaining the necessary scale to challenge platform giants?

Sadly her tweet didn’t contain any solutions — so the search for a remedy goes on.

It also remains to be seen where the Commission’s next Google antitrust investigation will go.

This summer the bloc’s executive confirmed it was looking into the tech giant’s adtech — lagging antitrust interventions already been taken elsewhere in the region, including in the UK and France.

As for Google, the tech giant has been busy fighting the Commission’s existing antitrust enforcements against it.

Last week its lawyers were up in court for their appeal against the Commission’s $5BN Android antitrust fine — claiming that penalty was based on flawed calculations, was not “appropriate” and that it had not had any anti-competitive intent.

As competition for creator talent heats up, Snap today introduced a series of new tools, programs, and features that will enable creators on its platform to generate revenue. These include the expansion of a Gifting feature to worldwide creators, the expansion of the Creator Marketplace to include Snap Stars (top creators with verified accounts), the launch of a how-to resource called the Creator Hub, and a new way for Snapchat creators to be rewarded for making short-form video for its in-app TikTok rival, known as Spotlight.

The latter, called Spotlight Challenges, will offer cash prizes for top-performing Spotlight content, as directed by Snap itself. This is different from other social apps’ Creator Funds, which pay out based on metrics like views and engagement to anyone who qualifies. Instead, this is a “chance” to win cash where each individual challenge will reward an average of 3 to 5 creators as the winners — though sometimes that figure will be more or less, Snap notes. The minimum prize will be $250. Typically, the total prize amounts for individual challenges will range from $1,000 to $25,000, but Snap says it may sometimes offer a larger sum.

The challenges will be designed to encourage the use of specific Lenses, Sounds or #Topics, rather than paying out for any top-performing content. These challenges will be featured on Spotlight’s “Trending” page, which you access by tapping the trending up icon in the top-right of Spotlight’s main screen in the Snapchat app. Here, users will be able to view the available challenges, read the details about submission details and associated prize, then tap to open the camera and create content.

The addition follows complaints expressed by Snap creators who had earlier this year grown frustrated with Spotlight payment delays and later, the dwindling amount of money they could earn. While previously, Snap was paying out an incredible $1 million per day to get its TikTok competitor Spotlight off the ground, it stopped that program in late May saying it would decrease payments to”millions” per month as of June.

But creators who had grown to expect larger paydays were not happy with the change, and some began to look for better opportunities on other apps. Today, there are many options to choose from, as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter are all trying to woo creators in their own ways — including, in some cases, with direct payments in addition to revenue sharing from ads.

Snap’s new system of “challenges” would seem to offer a bit more transparency around payments, as creators will be able to see in advance what the prizes may be. But on the flip side, and perhaps most importantly, it signals to creators there is no guaranteed payday coming here — it’s a “prize,” not a paycheck. That means creators could still produce well-performing content and not “win” the cash.

The feature will be rolled out in the U.S. next month on iOS and Android before expanding to more markets.

Other new additions today include a Snapchat Creator Hub that offers information about getting started in Spotlight and other tips and the expansion of the Gifting feature to Snap Stars worldwide (see above). This feature had been announced in May and allows fans to support creators using Snap Tokens through Story Replies. The Snap Stars receive a share of the revenue from the Gifts they receive, as a sort of virtual tip.

Snap is also expanding the Creator Marketplace, which was previously working to connect Lens creators, developers and partners with businesses who wanted to run AR ads with their support.

Now, the marketplace will serve another purpose as well: it will connect businesses with Snap Stars worldwide for brand deals. This is how creator marketplaces across other top social platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube already work, so this is a bit of catch-up on Snap’s part.

Related to this move, Snap is also introducing a “Sponsored by” tag for businesses with Public Profiles so Snap Stars can tag brands in their sponsored content for transparency. In this case, 100% of the transactions will go directly to creators, Snap says.

Despite the changes to Snap’s earlier monetization efforts, the company claims the production of Spotlight content is booming. During its second-quarter earnings, Snap said Spotlight submissions more than tripled, daily time spent per user in the U.S. grew over 60% from the prior quarter, and daily active users were up 49%.

To date, Snap has paid out over $130 million to creators, it says. And it has seen “all-time highs” in terms of the number of creators posting to Spotlight since the June 1 revamp, the company noted.